This film is broadly based on the memoirs of the well-known Marathi Stage and screen actress of the 1940s, 'Hansa Wadkar' who led a flamboyant and unconventional life and focus at an individual's search for identity and self-fulfillment. Smita Patil gave the strong performance of transforming herself in its course from a vivacious teenage girl to a wiser but deeply wounded middle-aged woman.

The film won two National Film Awards and Filmfare Best Movie Award, it was invited to Carthage Film Festival 1978, Chicago Film Festival, where it was awarded the Golden Plaque 1978, and in 1986 it was invited to Festival of Images, Algeria.

Plot

Bhumika tells the life story of a Bollywood actress, Usha (Smita Patil),who is the granddaughter of a famous female singer of the old tradition. Usha's mother married to an abusive and alcoholic Brahmin. Following his early death, and over her mother’s objections, Usha is taken to Bombay by family hanger-on Keshav Dalvi (Amol Palekar) to successfully audition as a singer in a Bombay studio: the first step in a process, watched approvingly by her doting grandmother and with horror by her mother, that will eventually carry her to on-camera adolescent stardom, and to an ill-starred love marriage with...Read More